Here's the deal

[trswanson80]

My boss wants a digital camera that has a manual focus i.e she does not have to auto-focus on the person in foreground, she can focus on the trees in the back. She wants it to be of relatively gfood quality and, here's the kicker, only wants to spend $250.00. Of course, I know jack about cameras so, it would probably be better if she did herself, but that's its own story. Anyways, any thoughts would be much appreciated-
Disgruntled employee

[OldSchool]

Cannon Powershot A75. $200. Can go from fully auto to fully manual everything (focus, shutter, appature, etc.). 3 Mpixel. Go A85 or A95 if she wants more pixels.

[another view]

I feel your pain.

Problem is that most point and shoot digital cameras are lousy at manually focusing. I have a Coolpix 5000 that's been discontinued for a couple of years, and it does it but it's not useful in most cases. It does, however, let you manually pick which part of the screen you want to focus with (select one of five areas). That's a big help in this regard.

It was replaced by the Coolpix 5400 which has since been replaced by the 8400. You might still find a 5400 in stock somewhere and it should be pretty close to your budget. Great camera, does a lot of other stuff too and it's 5mp.

[almo]

Minolta makes the dimage sreies of 5mp cameras that feature whats called the flex focus point that lets you put the focus point anywhere in the image frame.

[shrapnel]

if she pushes the boat out a bit more, she can get the nikon coolpix 7600 (7mp) which from all accounts is a great little camera (don't have one personally, but good reviews all round)

[trswanson80]

Thanks for everyone's advice, I really, really appreciate it.- Tristan

[Photo-John]

The autofocus isn't the problem. Your boss just really needs to learn to pre-focus and recompose. Then she can pick a camera based on more important things like shutter-lag, image quality, exposure, etc. And then the $250 price limit isn't a big deal, either.